Chris Mortenson, a San Diego developer, hired an architect to find out what type of SRO (single-room-occupancy) building he could develop for very low-income people, many of them homeless, if unnecessary state and local regulations were ignored. SROs are basically apartment buildings that typically have rooms without kitchens and shared bathrooms at the end of hallways. SRO units are no-frills, but they are safer and cleaner than the streets.

“I got a lot of problems with you people, and now you’re going to hear about it!” That statement announces the traditional opening of the “airing of grievances” part of the Festivus season. In the U.S. Congress, Senator Rand Paul has adopted the spirit of the Festivus holiday as an opportunity to highlight wasteful government spending.

How much does it cost Americans to be subjected to almost 1.1 million federal regulations? Writing in Ten Thousand Commandments, Clyde Wayne Crews Jr. estimates that the cost of all those regulations is more than $1.939 trillion a year. This figure represents the combined cost of complying with all those regulations and their economic losses.

The U.S. Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) is the publication where virtually every rule issued by the U.S. government’s bureaucrats is published. QuantGov says it contains over 100 million words and “would take the average person over three years to read.”

In 2020, 23-year-old Jorge Molina was arrested in Avondale, Arizona, and charged with murder. Molina knew he was innocent, but during what he would later characterize as a “nightmare” scenario, police insisted they had their suspect during his interrogation. According to the police, Molina’s phone was “without a doubt” at the crime scene. Unbeknownst to Molina at the time, detectives arrested him based on Google location data obtained through a geofence warrant and because surveillance footage showed a white Honda registered to Jorge near the crime. Molina was eventually released after six days when his alibi was confirmed, but his arrest had lasting repercussions. Molina lost his retail job and had to drop out of school. Without an income, his car, which was impounded due to the investigation, was repossessed. Jorge’s estranged stepfather, who seemingly took Jorge’s car without permission, was eventually arrested in connection with the murder.

On the morning of December 13, the city of Alexandria, Virginia, together with MSE (the company owned by Ted Leonsis that owns the Washington Wizards, NBA, and Washington Capitals, NHL), the Commonwealth of Virginia, and the developer and land owner JBG Smith, held a press conference to announce that the Wizards and the Capitals will be moving from DC to Alexandria. Here we go again.

Sandra Day O’Connor, a Reagan appointee, was the first woman to serve on the Supreme Court. She died on December 1, 2023, and multiple tributes have followed online and in print. One appearing yesterday on the SCOTUS Blog caught my attention. Entitled “Justice Sandra Day O’Connor protected us from the extremes,” Marci A. Hamilton, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania and former O’Connor clerk, argues that America needs more judges like her old boss. However, Hamilton’s praise and candor are a microcosm of what is wrong with American law.

One is used to hearing crowds yelling, “There´s no money” or something to that effect in the public square. It means that people are angry at their government and want the authorities to remedy their troubles by redistributing the wealth back to them (“back” because the rich have gained their wealth at their expense.) One is not used to hearing the masses chant “There’s no money” to express their deafening approval of an incoming president who has just announced that he will unleash on them the most brutal shock therapy in the country’s history to redress an inherited fiscal and monetary catastrophe. This is precisely what happened on Sunday, December 10th, in front of the Congress of Argentina when Javier Milei, the self-proclaimed libertarian leader, gave his inaugural speech and offered years of the equivalent of “blood, toil, tears, and sweat” in terms of government austerity to arguably the most populist-prone country in the Western hemisphere.

Maddy Smith was diagnosed with Spinal Muscular Atrophy (SMA)—an extremely rare but debilitating genetic disorder—as an infant. SMA is a neuromuscular condition that robs victims of the ability to move, swallow, and sometimes breathe without assistance. Shortly before she turned two, Maddy still lacked the strength to crawl or eat solid foods. 

“I think it was President Reagan who said, ‘We’re from the government. We’re here to help!’” That was a recent post from Education Secretary Miguel Cardona, who has it wrong. President Reagan actually said: “The nine most terrifying words in the English language are: I’m from the government, and I’m here to help.” It’s a funny mistake for an education secretary, but it’s understandable.